Tudor wall to rear of 1-7 Phene Street

Tudor Wall to rear of 1-7 Phene Street

This brick boundary wall dates from the early 16th century, though it was rebuilt in the 18th or 19th century and patched in recent years, with possible areas of later brickwork on its north side.

The wall runs in a straight line roughly east to west for approximately 38 metres. When inspected in 2007, only the south face was visible, much obscured by foliage. The brickwork shows irregular bonding patterns with rows of headers and stretchers. A significant proportion of original 16th-century bricks survive. The wall was rebuilt in the 18th or 19th century, at which time blue bricks were interspersed with the smaller red bricks. Black-ash mortar was applied to sections during the 19th century. Some capping and upper courses were rebuilt in the late 20th century, and a section in the garden of 43 Oakley Street is entirely early 21st-century brickwork. Insensitive repointing in cement mortar affects some sections. Good stretches survive where the brickwork remains largely unaltered since the 18th or early 19th century. At its westernmost point, the wall abuts mid-Victorian houses on Oakley Street. At its easternmost point, it ties into the listed north-south former orchard boundary wall. Both walls, though of different heights, are likely roughly contemporary, following a long-standing boundary. The north-south wall is described in heritage records as part of the boundary walls of Henry VIII's manor, and its adjoining sections running west and then south are indeed so connected. This northernmost section appears to be the boundary of the long orchard historically connected to Shrewsbury House.

The north face was not inspected but is known to have been rendered at 1 Phene Street, with suggestions the wall may have been buttressed by a later wall on the north side.

The wall marked the boundary of a long rectangular orchard stretching west to east, which was part of the garden of Shrewsbury House, an early 16th-century building on the riverside. The orchard was bisected by Oakley Street in the mid-19th century, but the distinctive plot shape can still be identified on modern maps on either side of the street; its western section is now the site of Adair House. The boundary wall appears on numerous historic maps including James Hamilton's "Parish of Chelsea" of 1664, the 1706 water supply map of Chelsea, Christopher and John Greenwood's map of London of 1830, Thompson's map of 1836, Edward Standford's "London and its Suburbs" of 1862, and Ordnance Survey maps of 1874, 1896, and 1916.

Shrewsbury House is first recorded in the early to mid-16th century when owned by George, Earl of Shrewsbury, a Privy Councillor to Henry VIII. Shrewsbury likely built or adapted the house after Henry VIII refitted an older manor house on the riverside at Chelsea, on the site of what is now 19-26 Cheyne Walk, in 1536. Henry VIII also channelled water via a conduit from Kensington Palace Green to the manor house and a fountain in the Great Garden to the west. The 1703 map depicting this system shows the pipes reaching the site at what may be a conduit house in the northern stretch of the Shrewsbury House orchard boundary wall, continuing south through the orchard to the manor house. Shrewsbury House later became the home of Sir Joseph Alston. In the 1706 water supply map, the land bounded by the wall is labelled "Sir Joseph Alston's Orchard", connecting the plot with Shrewsbury House rather than Henry VIII's manor. The house was used as a paper manufactory by 1792 and was demolished in 1813.

Other remnants of the Shrewsbury House garden wall are recorded in Alfred Beaver's "Memorials of Old Chelsea" of 1892. He describes Carlyle observing sections of Tudor wall in his garden and mentions a further section in the grounds of what is now Adair House. Several of these stretches survive and are listed Grade II.